- Rough sleepers across England to receive extra support to help them recover from drug and alcohol misuse
- Croydon to receive £480,995 this year, with further support to be confirmed from April
- Councils with high rough sleeper numbers to also begin receiving extra funding to provide accommodation for rough sleepers this winter
People at risk of rough sleeping and homelessness will be able to access extra support in Croydon, after the Government announced more than £480,000 in additional funding as part of a wider plan to end rough sleeping for good by 2024.
Croydon is one of forty-three areas across England that will share an additional £23 million to pay for drug and alcohol misuse services targeted at vulnerable people at risk of rough sleeping in 2020-21. From April next year, funding for the programme will more than double to £52 million for 2021-22 with future allocations to be announced at a later date.
Thousands of rough sleepers who are being provided with emergency accommodation during the pandemic as part of the Government’s ‘Everyone In’ programme, and people who are currently rough sleeping, will be eligible for the support. The funding will pay for them to access drug and alcohol treatment, including detox and rehabilitation support, and to access mental health and substance dependence workers who can help them get their life back on track.
The Government has also confirmed that London will receive £3,955,571 from the £15 million Protect Programme to provide accommodation for rough sleepers during the pandemic in areas that required extra support during the restrictions and throughout winter.
Taken together, government spending on rough sleeping and homelessness this year is over £700 million, with the ‘Everyone In’ campaign helping to protect thousands of lives during the pandemic by housing rough sleepers in safe accommodation.
Commenting, Mario Creatura said:
“Throughout the pandemic, the Government has supported thousands of rough sleepers and people at risk of homelessness, keeping them off the streets and protected from coronavirus.
“This additional funding is hugely welcome and means we can go further and do important work to tackle the cycle of alcohol and substance misuse that, sadly, is often an underlying factor in why people end up on the streets both in Croydon and other communities across the country.
“Under this Conservative Government, more than £700 million is being invested this year alone to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, delivering on the promise we made at the last election to end rough sleeping completely by 2024.”
Commenting, Minister for Rough Sleeping Kelly Tolhurst said:
“We know that one of the main issues facing those sleeping rough, or at risk of homelessness, is misuse of drugs or alcohol and what a crippling effect these substances have on people’s lives.
“While our ‘Everyone In’ campaign has helped to protect thousands of lives, we still need to work hard to break the cycle of rough sleeping for good.
“This funding will provide thousands of vulnerable people with the support they need to get on the road to recovery to rebuild their lives away from the streets for good.”
Commenting, Health Minister Jo Churchill said:
“The need to support the most vulnerable groups in society has never been more important or more apparent than this year.
“We are committed to supporting those who want to break the cycle of addiction.
“This funding will not only help those personally fighting addiction, but also benefit their loved ones and the communities who suffer from the often very difficult consequences of substance misuse”
- Over the past year alone, 61 per cent of those sleeping rough in London said they needed help with addiction problems, with 39 per reporting alcohol misuse and a further 3 per reporting drug misuse. A government survey of 500 rough sleepers found that the vast majority (96 per cent) of the respondents experienced another support need in addition to sleeping rough, such as physical or mental health vulnerabilities, substance misuse support needs, time spent in prison or having been a victim of domestic abuse or a recent victim of crime, while 91 per cent had been affected by two or more of these issues (MHCLG, Press Release, 14 December 2020, link).
- We will invest £75 million over the next two years in drug and alcohol misuse services to ensure rough sleepers get the support they need to rebuild their lives away from the streets for good. £23 million this year and a further £52 million in 2021-22 will be invested in drug and alcohol treatment services, such as detoxes, rehabilitation services and mental health and substance misuse support, for vulnerable people sleeping rough (MHCLG, Press Release, 14 December 2020, link).
- We continue to support people at risk of rough sleeping through our unprecedented Everyone In programme. Local councils have received more than £6.4 billion in un-ringfenced funding since the pandemic began. This has funded vital, emergency schemes such as the ‘Everyone In’ programme, which has helped more than 19,000 people into settled accommodation and is supporting a further 10,000; and the £15 million ‘Protect Programme’ which is providing additional targeted support and emergency accommodation in areas with the highest numbers of rough sleepers (MHCLG, Press Release, 29 October 2020, link).
- We are giving councils the funding they need to ensure people receiving support don’t return to sleeping rough. Backed by £105 million, the Next Steps Accommodation Programme gives councils extra funding to provide secure accommodation for people who have been supported during the pandemic, so that they do not return to sleeping the streets. Councils can also access a £10 million Cold Weather Fund to pay for covid-secure winter accommodation (MHCLG, Press Release, 13 October 2020, link; MHCLG, Press Release, 17 September 2020, link).
- We will provide thousands of new long-term, safe homes for rough sleepers who have been helped off the streets. Backed by more than £150 million, over 3,000 new homes will be made available in every region of England by the end of March 2021 as part of the Government’s investment of £433 million to deliver 6,000 units by 2024 (MHCLG, Press Release, 24 May 2020, link).
Photo by Anjana Menon on Unsplash
